


history hangs her well

by forcynics



Series: holiday fic 2011 [4]
Category: The Vampire Diaries (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-05
Updated: 2011-12-05
Packaged: 2018-05-24 00:45:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6135646
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forcynics/pseuds/forcynics
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Elijah always wishes he could pinpoint where everything first began to go wrong. Wonders if he ever could have stopped it, or if it was always beyond their control.</p>
            </blockquote>





	history hangs her well

The dopplegangr will be a human. Breaking the curse requires a witch, a vampire, and a werewolf, but that the dopplegangr is still human is the most crucial point of them all.

The dopplegangr must be human, because _she_ was, half a millennium ago. The curse was sealed by her humanity and to break it that same humanity must be sacrificed again.

She must die again, and this time at their hands.

Niklaus speaks of it so vehemently, eyes flashing, as if it all as some of sort of revenge, as if he will relish it.

And Elijah imagines seeing her face again, returned to life, and wonders how he will ever be capable of it.

 

 

Tatia is the same age as Rebekah, and played often with her in the village while they were all growing up, though she ends up married with a baby son while Rebekah is still frolicking around as she pleases.

Elijah can't pinpoint the moment he first noticed her beyond that, his sister's companion. He can't pinpoint the moment his attention was first distracted by the way she widened her deep, brown eyes as she teased him, or the sweet curve of her smile when it was directed his way, or how the wind caught her hair when she turned.

He can't pinpoint the moment Niklaus first noticed any of these things either.

He wishes he could, though. Always wishes he could pinpoint where everything first began to go wrong. Wonders if he ever could have stopped it, or if it was always beyond their control. But he doesn't like to blame some abstract fate for his (many) mistakes.

 

 

The first time he kisses Tatia, they are in the forest. He is gathering wood and she is gathering herbs, and she laughs at a remark of his, all bright eyes and lips curled pleasantly, and he thinks he has never been so bewitched.

She steps closer to him, smiling sweetly and tilting her head, and she stares at him with an all-knowing sort of look, one that makes clear she's realized he is staring at her too.

"Do you want to kiss me, Elijah?" she asks, her voice clear, as if she were speaking any other, harmless words.

And he knows he should say no. He knows it is not proper, he knows it is wrong - but lying is wrong too, his mind attempts to reason, weighs the two against each other. He pretends lying is the worse sin, nods almost imperceptibly.

He would regret it if not for the way her face lights up, almost mischievous for a moment, and then she is pushing herself up on the tips of her toes, swaying closer to him, and he has already confessed-- he takes her face in his hands, presses his mouth to hers carefully.

Ironically enough, he will lie to himself about this moment for hundreds of years come, as he swears over and over that he regrets it.

 

 

"Tatia Petrova is a beautiful girl," Niklaus remarks, a few days later, when they are sharpening their swords outside their home.

Elijah's first instinct is guilt, nearly overwhelming, as he wonders if his brother might have seen, if he _knows_. But there is something strange in Niklaus's voice, merely wistful instead of pointed, and when he looks up he follows his brother's gaze across to where Tatia is whispering to Rebekah.

He tells himself it means nothing. A meaningless observation, no more than that. He ignores the way his brother's eyes are narrowed, and the tight line of his mouth.

He tries to ignore all of it, and this he does learn to regret.

 

 

The next day he finds her, fetching water from the river.

She dips her head, says "Elijah," with a little smile, a quirk of her lips that has him mad to kiss her again. He tells himself he must refrain.

"Tatia," he greets, his voice even. He does smile back, though.

"It is quite a warm day," she remarks - and then smirks, when he agrees with a nod. She smirks, and he feels nervous deep in his stomach, and then she is grabbing his hand and tugging him closer to the river. "Come, we should cool ourselves!"

Her eyes are bright, her smile more inviting than cool water could ever be, but Elijah tenses.

"We should not..." he starts to say, but then she leaps, with a little yelp, and his fingers have interlocked themselves so tightly around hers and he does not let go, allows himself to be yanked into the water along with her against every instinct.

He surfaces sputtering, and she is kneeling in the water with her arms outstretched to the sun.

"Such a beautiful day..." she murmurs.

"Beautiful," he agrees softly, though it is her he is staring at.

Her eyes lower to his, and she moves closer, fluid in the water.

"Would you kiss me again?"

And she says it as a question, a request, with water hanging from her eyelashes and her hair shining in the sunlight, and Elijah feels helpless, forgets to even answer and simply kisses her.

Her lips are wet and cold, but they part at the touch of his, and her hand slides up his neck and sends a shiver down his spine. Elijah cannot say how long they remain like that. It all becomes a blur of her soft mouth and her cool skin and, later, the grass of the riverbank underneath them, and how the sun beat down gently, warmed their skin as they exposed themselves; it becomes a haze of the softness of her thighs and how her fingers ran over his back and so many sweet words whispered between them and a euphoria like nothing he has ever known.

" _You_ are like nothing I have ever known," he confesses to her.

 

He cannot sleep, several nights later, and leaves the house, stretches out in the fresh air and decides to take a walk of the village.

But then he hears the sharp gasp, and a voice too low and quick for him to make out any words. He follows the sound - he should not, he thinks, he should turn around and return home, but he does not - and feels peculiarly unsurprised and furious all at once when he rounds the corner and sees them.

Tatia and his brother, barely visible in the moonlight. Niklaus with one hand twisted in Tatia's hair and the other tight on her waist, and his mouth on hers. Tatia whimpers but she is not struggling, and Elijah can't--

"What is the meaning of this?" His whisper is sudden and angry; he feels as if the world has lurched around him.

The two break away from each other, and Tatia gasps again. Niklaus looks accusatory for a moment, but it is such a short moment and the lighting so poor that Elijah is not certain he ever saw it.

"There is nothing for you to see here, brother," Niklaus finally says, slowly, crooked grin and all.

But it is not his brother that Elijah has eyes for. "Tatia?" He hates how soft his voice is, almost as much as he hates how angry he feels.

Her mouth twists, and her eyes dart between the two of them. She looks almost afraid, and Elijah does not think that can be put down to the moonlight.

"I should return home," she finally says, biting her lip and pulling further away from Niklaus, nodding her head to them both and rushing off.

Home to her husband and child, Elijah reminds himself, feels faintly sick at the whole, tangled thing of it.

Niklaus only looks annoyed, and then triumphant. He grins, and whispers "A beautiful girl indeed," when he sweeps by Elijah.

He does not know how long he stands there but even when he does turn home, he sleeps not at all that night.

 

 

There is a spite that stretches out between Niklaus and him, one they resolutely do not touch on, only remain sullenly aware of. Elijah does not blame his brother, and he does not think Niklaus blames him either, but--

He remembers how they looked, Tatia's gasp, the fright on her face. He remembers the accusation in his brother's eyes, grows more certain of it, and wonders exactly what point Niklaus was trying to prove. Wonders if there was a point at all.

He remembers the way Tatia's eyes fell on his, how much they gave away, how much Niklaus must know. He wonders how much he resents Tatia - how much he resents Elijah himself. He wonders what his brother feels for her, what Tatia feels for his brother.

But neither of them can have her, and somehow, Elijah thinks, they end up silently hating each other for it.

The difference is that Niklaus grows to hate Tatia for it too, and Elijah never learns how to be capable of that.

 

 

In the end, she is merely in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Their mother couldn't have known, though the bitterness of it left a sour aftertaste in Elijah's mouth that would remain for many years to come.

She needed human blood, and Tatia was wandering in the forest.

(Elijah remembers another day she wandered in the forest.)

She needed human blood, so Tatia dies, her humanity sacrificed to suppress Niklaus's monstrosity, as if that is somehow a fair compromise.

 

 

And they spend the next five hundred years waiting to lay eyes on her again.


End file.
